Arlington: Images of US chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura throwing D Gukesh’s ‘King’ into the crowd after winning an exhibition game against the world champion have now gone viral on social media.
While many, including former world champion Vladimir Kramnik, have criticised Nakamura, others said that teams were encouraged to engage in such ‘theatrics’ to hype the crowd in the Checkmate: USA vs India exhibition contest that took place at Arlington in Texas, USA.
World No 2 and US champion Nakamura had led Team USA to a dominant 5-0 sweep over the Indian side. After his own win against Gukesh, the US player picked up his opponent’s ‘King’ from the board and threw it into the crowd.
“I don’t know who came up with this childish, tasteless act. Likely this ‘thinker’ had no specific intention to humiliate Gukesh, but could have realised that this public gesture (using opponent’s KING) looks offensive and provocative ESPECIALLY against the World Champion,” Kramnik wrote on X.
Nakamura remained unapologetic after the incident. In his interview to Chess India, he said: “If I won, I was always going to throw the King. The fact that it was a dramatic bullet game made it even better. I hope the fans enjoyed it!”
Even FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky, however, slammed Nakamura on X, saying: “For better or worse, name me one top player who would do what Hikaru did.”
Levy Rozman, a popular chess streamer who goes by the name GothamChess on the internet said that theatrics were encouraged in this short tournament where some of the most popular players were participating.
“Both teams were briefed that theatrics were encouraged and throwing Kings, knocking them over etc to hype the crowd up was ok. It just so happened that Hikaru won, and pretty sure he even spoke to/apologized to Gukesh backstage, saying it was all for show,” Rozman said after the game.
Indian-origin Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri shared a similar view and came out in support of Nakamura.
“I am team Hikaru here. Organizers probably tried an experimental event, not pretending that this is the only way chess should be played in the future, but just to try to have some fun. Hikaru was just playing along and did something funky for the memes. Don’t see the big deal,” Giri wrote on X.